Enhanced Box Score: Cubs 14, Mariners 9 – April 11, 2023
COMEBACK CUBS. What a win. When the Cubs play the Mariners at Wrigley Field and go down big early … crazy stuff happens.
OK, in all seriousness. When the Cubs went down 7-0 – and frankly, even before that – it felt like this was going to be a throwaway night. It happens. A seven-run deficit in the 2nd inning? You more or less never come back from that, especially with a Cubs lineup not known to be explosive.
BUT IT WAS EXPLOSIVE TONIGHT.
The Cubs’ bats turned it on almost immediately, taking the lead an inning later, capped off by that freaking AWESOME Nelson Velazquez grand slam.
The Cubs didn’t let up from there, adding insurance runs aplenty – thoughtful on a night with the wind blowing out. The bullpen stepped up to cover the final 7.2 innings of the game, allowing just two runs. Really impressive stuff.
We’ll have to get into Hayden Wesneski’s start in greater detail tomorrow. The short version is that his control was completely absent. That meant he didn’t get calls at the edges of the zone (because he was missing his spots so badly). It meant he gave up walks. It meant he missed spots and got hit. And it meant he wasn’t getting swings and misses because no one had to offer at anything borderline. It was really ugly.
We’ll also have to get into the Dansby Swanson maybe injury tomorrow, because I don’t want to bum myself out right now and we have only limited info (lower left side tightness). I want to enjoy tonight’s crazy win.
